


An Idea of Fouché’s

by Kainosite



Category: La Comédie Humaine - Honoré de Balzac, Les Chouans - Honoré de Balzac
Genre: Bad Practice in Government, Fouché Made Them Do It, M/M, Mutual Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:01:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21844126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kainosite/pseuds/Kainosite
Summary: The Ministry of War really needs to stop sending Hulot awful letters.
Relationships: Corentin/Hulot
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	An Idea of Fouché’s

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Esteliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/gifts).



> With gratitude to [iberiandoctor](/users/jehane/pseuds/iberiandoctor/), as ever the best of betas.

Commandant Hulot scowled at the dispatch in his hands, hoping the neatly written words would rearrange themselves into something more palatable.

The army had taught him his letters, but he was still a slow and clumsy reader. It was possible that he had made a mistake. He would even have welcomed a sneering correction from Fouché’s damnable spy, anything to make the directive from the Ministry of War say something other than what it said.

Corentin ought to know if Hulot had gotten it wrong, for it was clear enough that he’d read the message himself before handing it over. The Ministry was not in the habit of sending its orders unsealed, and the folded paper had the look of a letter that had once resided in an envelope. It had not been in an envelope when Corentin gave it to Hulot. Besides, the spy had listened to him read it out with an unchanging expression of smug anticipation, the same expression he now wore on his extremely punchable face. Nothing in that dispatch had surprised him.

No correction was forthcoming. No matter how hard Hulot glared at them, the letters stubbornly refused to spell out any words but these:

_Citizen Commandant,_

_You are to render all necessary assistance to Citoyenne de Verneuil in her mission to apprehend the ci-devant Marquis de Montauran, the brigand leader commonly referred to as the Gars._

_Citizen Corentin has been designated the point of contact between the army and the police in this matter. He is at your disposal. Liaise with him and establish a rapport._

_Salutations, etc  
Berthier, Minister of War_

It was that final word ‘rapport’ that was so deadly. ‘Liaise’ could mean any number of things, but ‘establish a rapport’ meant only one, and in concert with ‘he is at your disposal’… Well, it was clear enough what Berthier expected him to do.

Hulot was no stranger to liaising with civil officials. It came with the territory of of a military command. When the army conquered abroad, a town made its submission and then the officers had their pick of the syndics or ratsherren or whatever queer foreign thing they liked to call themselves. And when a unit was stationed in France its officers were expected to maintain cordial relations with the communities that hosted them, to demonstrate the army’s responsiveness to civilian needs and give local officials the opportunity to prove their patriotic fervor. Not two months ago Hulot had passed a pleasant evening with the mayor of this very town, confirming the army’s esteem for the civil administration and Fougères’ gratitude to her brave defenders to their mutual satisfaction.

He had no objections to the practice in principle. In these turbulent times, with the nation so riven by factions and bedeviled with traitors, it was necessary that military leaders and their civilian counterparts came to trust each other promptly, for the pooling of intelligence and the efficient distribution of resources was often a matter of life and death. When rapport-building worked – and there were times when all that it accomplished was to make both parties feel self-conscious, uncomfortable, and a little sticky, but in Hulot’s experience it generally worked – it forged a sense of fraternity that could not be achieved so quickly in any other way. The other European powers might sneer at it as a species of prostitution, but their soldiers were mercenaries who fought the wars of tyrants for gold. France’s soldiers were patriots who fought for liberty and for their country. It took no great intellect to see who the true prostitutes were.

There was no shame in it. The First Consul himself had done it during his days as an artillery officer. But it was one thing to rub off a republican mayor – to be called upon to sully himself with a police spy was another matter entirely. And such a spy as the perfumed little popinjay before him! From his corkscrew ringlets to the tips of his tasseled boots, Corentin embodied everything Hulot had come to fear and loathe about the civilian government he fought for. While he and his men risked their lives to defend the Republic from her many enemies, safe behind the lines in Paris their so-called leaders betrayed the revolution with every stroke of their pens. Odious little fops like this one strutted around like they owned the place and assaulted good patriots in the street while the authorities looked the other way, and all the while army secured the frontiers for them so they had the leisure in which to do it.

He’d thought the First Consul had put an end to that nonsense, and perhaps he had; certainly Hulot could not criticize his choice of a Minister of Police. Fouché’s republican credentials were beyond reproach. But Fouché still dressed in the shabby black of a schoolmaster, whereas his agent… Hulot wished he could believe the incroyable getup was a disguise, but surely no one took so much time curling his hair unless he really _meant_ it. Why send him such a creature? And in God’s name, what were the ministers thinking demanding that he fuck it?

Repugnance left Hulot at a loss for words. His customary interjections fell short. Even ten thousand thunders seemed insufficient to express the depths of his dismay.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who had listened to the letter with wide-eyed interest, resolved his conundrum by clapping her hands and seizing control of the conversation. She smiled brightly at Corentin, a malevolent gleam in her eye.

“But that’s marvelous! Why, if Fouché was willing to go as far as that, he had no need for me at all! He might have sent you after the Gars and left me back in Paris.”

The spy began to offer a half-hearted demurral, but Mlle. de Verneuil had not yet finished with him. Her face fell theatrically into a pretty pout.

“Oh, but it wouldn’t have worked, would it? The marquis wanted nothing to do with you in Alençon, and unless I miss my guess, Colonel Hulot doesn’t either.”

“Ah, but that was not a fair test. I could hardly hope to compete against such a beautiful rival,” Corentin said, giving her a little bow.

It was, Hulot had to concede, about as adroit a recovery as any man could make from Corentin’s position, but it still left Mlle. de Verneuil firmly in possession of the field. She laughed.

“You couldn’t have managed it in any case. To win the heart of a man like that you must offer up your own, and you’ve never had the nerve. Perhaps you never had a heart at all. Fouché was quite right to send a woman to engage the enemy and make of you a camp follower.” She waved a desultory hand at the door. “Run along and _liaise_ , if you like. I have a campaign to plan.”

It was clearly a dismissal. Corentin bowed again, more deeply, and went out. Hulot could not think what else to do but follow. He had obtained no satisfactory answers regarding the deaths of his men, but it seemed plain that he would have none; it was impossible to get a sensible account out of the girl, and Corentin had thoroughly derailed the conversation with that execrable letter. There was nothing to do but retreat.

Hulot had been standing by the window. As he passed her on his way to the door, Mlle. de Verneuil caught at his hand. To his shock, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, as she might kiss her lover on his way to the scaffold.

“Poor colonel. I don’t envy you,” she said.

To his displeasure, Corentin was waiting for him on the steps of the house.

“Remarkable girl, isn’t she?” the spy said breezily, as if this was likely to make Hulot forget everything she’d said about him in the last five minutes.

“Not half so remarkable as this scheme of the ministers,” Hulot snapped, slapping the letter against the little muscadin’s offensively scarlet waistcoat. “What are they playing at?”

Corentin edged sideways off the step before Hulot could hit him with the paper again.

“I’m sorry if it comes as a bit of a shock.” He did not sound particularly sorry. “I meant to give it to you in Alençon, but you resigned before I had the chance.”

“Had I known I would have resigned sooner.”

“It wouldn’t have done you any good. I doubt Berthier would have found that sufficient grounds to accept your resignation either.” The spy gave him a wry look. “I regret to say we are both at the disposal of the government.”

That was true, to a point. Hulot could not simply walk off and leave his men leaderless in the midst of a war zone; by refusing to accept his resignation and appoint a replacement, Berthier had effectively forced him to resume his command. But there were limits to his obedience, and the Ministry of War had just discovered one. Hulot said nothing, but the bristle of his mustache would have warned any of his soldiers it would be prudent to do likewise.

Corentin was either oblivious or indifferent to such signals.

“I’ll call on you this evening?” he suggested.

“Not if you value your safety,” Hulot growled, only half joking, but the spy just smiled and strolled off whistling.  
  


* * *

  
As Hulot and his two battalions were newly arrived in Fougères after a long absence, the mayor had invited the senior officers to dinner. Hulot felt acutely the loss of Gérard and Merle, who would have accompanied him to such a soirée and rendered it more tolerable with their presence, Gérard by being as transparently bored and miserable as Hulot was himself, and Merle because he could manage to enjoy just about anything and his good humor was infectious. But Hulot knew he must do without them this night and every night hence until he joined them in the grave, and they would not have wanted him to hide in his room and sulk, so he resisted the urge to plead his duties and resolved to make the best of the situation. If the conversation was unlikely to be riveting, he could at least hope for a good meal and an opportunity to review the town’s defenses with the captain of the National Guard.

He was not hoping to see Corentin.

When he came into Mayor Loysel’s salon his eye was immediately assaulted by the flaming red stripes of an unpleasantly familiar waistcoat, and he realized his mistake. Somehow the spy had wrangled an invitation. The captain of the National Guard had the good grace to buttonhole Hulot to talk about gun emplacements, and the man was oblivious and bullheaded enough that it was impossible for anyone else to join the conversation. Although Corentin hovered hopefully around the edges of their little group for the better part of fifteen minutes, they were called in for dinner before he managed to weasel his way in. But it was not a large party, and Hulot could not hope to avoid him forever.

Hulot was the guest of honor and Corentin had been relegated to the far end of the table, so Hulot was spared from having to converse with him over his roast duck, but the incroyable kept trying to catch his eye. Despite the worthy citizen to his left droning on about the pernicious effect of the insurrection on the local glass industry, Hulot found himself dreading the coming of the cheese plate and the ending of the meal. How genial Loysel seemed, smiling across the table at him in the candlelight! How easy and pleasant it would be to spend another hour or two with the mayor in his study, instead of being forced to deal with this appalling order from the Ministry!

Hulot knew it was his own fault that Corentin was haunting him like a flamboyantly dressed ghost. He had failed to declare in unequivocal terms that he would sooner fuck a barrel of nails than a muscadin spy and there was no chance in hell that he was going to carry out this directive, and so Corentin thought, not unreasonably, that it was his business to arrange an assignation. No doubt he had another vile little letter in his pocket, this one with Fouché’s signature at the bottom – or perhaps not, perhaps in his shadowy branch of service one’s superiors were not so clumsy as to commit their orders to paper – but in any case he would have instructions of his own that mirrored Hulot’s, and he was doing his best to follow them. Hulot should have been more direct with him.

But in truth Hulot was deeply troubled by the whole affair. He was not, in the main, an insubordinate officer. He was not one of those who fancy themselves great generals and pursue their own designs upon the battlefield, thinking themselves superior strategists to the higher-ups with their fine maps and their elaborate battle plans. Hulot was a good field commander and he knew it, but his formal training had been patchy, and he’d never had much patience for reading military history or theoretical treatises. Then, too, a rebelling province was pacified as much through politics as through military force, and that was a domain in which he had neither interest nor aptitude. He was content to leave such work to men like Berthier and Bonaparte.

His was not a blind faith in the infallibility of his superiors, but rather a consciousness of his own limitations and an understanding that the army could not function if officers at every level could not rely on the obedience of their subordinates. When he’d been ordered to escort Mlle. de Verneuil’s coach from Mortagne, he had grumbled about the waste of resources, but it had not occurred to him to disregard the order or to do the job halfheartedly. All Hulot wanted was straightforward orders that he understood, that served a clear military purpose, and that he could carry out with honor. As long as he received them, he had followed them. When he was confronted with an order he found impossible, he had resigned.

He did not mind overmuch that his resignation had not been accepted. Berthier’s refusal had arrived in Alençon at the same time as the news of the massacre at La Vivetière, and after hearing of that outrage Hulot had been eager to avenge his two friends and his slaughtered troops. Besides, he had received along with the official dispatch a private letter assuring him that he need not entangle himself in Fouché’s abominable scheme to seduce the Gars beyond supplying Mlle. de Verneuil with the necessary firepower. That letter had said nothing about establishing a rapport with the police. No doubt Berthier thought the matter so trivial as not to be worth mentioning. But no one was asking _him_ to sleep with a spy.

First with the demand to obey Mlle. de Verneuil and now with this new directive, Hulot felt, in an obscure but definite way, that his loyalty was being taken advantage of.

There is nothing more corrosive to good discipline than this sentiment.

Ministerial directives were open to a degree of interpretation, and Hulot had in his time skirted around the edges of a few, knowing he could better fulfill his superiors’ intent by waiving some of the details. It was not unknown for the ministers in Paris to issue orders that were contradictory or logistically impossible, and it was the duty of any competent field officer to employ his superior knowledge of local conditions and the state of his unit to deliver the outcome they wanted, rather than adhering strictly to their instructions. But Hulot had never in his life flat-out refused an order, until four days ago in Alençon when he broke his sword over his knee and resigned. Now that he was denied that recourse, he was at a loss for what to do.

He had sworn an oath of obedience, and he was conscious of a soldier’s obligations. To break that lifelong habit now, to break his vow for the sake of some detestable little muscadin – it did not bear thinking about. He could not tell Corentin that he was refusing to comply with the directive. The words would stick in his throat. But neither did he wish to establish a rapport with the police. He did not want to deal with Corentin at all. What he wanted was for the infernal spy and the whole sordid business to simply go away.

To this end, after dinner he made his excuses to Madame Loysel and tried to make a discreet exit while Corentin was distracted by the many grievances of the glass merchant. He should have known better than to think he could give the slip to a spy. He had scarcely gone two paces down the street when Fouché’s agent appeared at his side as if by magic.

“Shall we set a time and place for our meeting, commandant? I could come along to your lodgings now, if that would be agreeable.”

Hulot could not think offhand of anything less agreeable. He was about to suggest that he and Corentin should meet in hell, at half past never, when Gudin came up to them at a run.

“My commandant, the cannons have arrived!” the young sub-lieutenant panted. If he had not doubled over to catch his breath, Hulot would have kissed him.

“Duty calls,” he said to Corentin with relief.

The spy gave him a narrow, considering look, as if he half-suspected all the thoughts running through Hulot’s head, but he could not very well claim to be a higher priority than the cannons and the defense of the town.

“Another time, then,” he said, and let them go.  
  


* * *

  
Dawn brought a Chouan attack.

Hulot welcomed it.

War was his business; he understood it, he was good at it, and it made no demands on him that he was unwilling to fulfill. The assault on Fougères afforded him the chance to give the Marquis de Montauran the thumping he deserved. Besides, there was always the hope that he might be shot, or better yet, that Corentin might be, and their assignation would have to be postponed. Best of all, the Gars might be shot, putting an end to the whole sorry affair. If the damned aristocrat would only have the decency to fall in battle, the police would cease their interference in military matters, there would be no need to establish any rapport between them, and Fouché’s agents could return to Paris with both Mlle. de Verneuil’s virtue and Hulot’s intact.

Alas, royalists are seldom so obliging. Although the Chouans lost almost a thousand men in their ill-judged attack on the town, the marquis was not among them. He had been clever enough to stay out of the range of the Blues’ guns, and Hulot had not quite succeeded in cutting off his retreat. Still, for all of that it was a good result; they had only two hundred casualties on their side, and they had run the enemy out of the valley of the Couesnon, at least for the moment.

Hulot was congratulating himself on a job well done when Corentin came trotting up on a trim little bay mare. Today his waistcoat was a hideous sea-green which clashed, if possible, even more than the scarlet one had with his yellow breeches and his cinnamon-colored coat. The spy waved jauntily and reined in beside him.

“Bravo, commandant! Our victory will certainly send a message to that wretched ci-devant that the Republic is not to be trifled with.”

Fine words no doubt, but Hulot was little inclined to hear them from an incroyable. Besides, he thought he detected a tone of irony beneath the republican rhetoric.

“Our victory? I don’t recall seeing you pick up a gun.”

“My talents lie elsewhere,” said Corentin. “You have done your part, now I shall do mine.”

“And what part is that, exactly?” Hulot asked, for he had yet to see Corentin contribute anything of any value at all. He disliked Mlle. de Verneuil’s role in the enterprise, but he understood it. Corentin’s purpose remained obscure.

“At present, a search. It appears that no one has seen Mlle. de Verneuil since last night. I’m confident that wherever she is, she is as safe as she would be here, under your esteemed protection,“ he said, giving Hulot a little half-bow from the saddle. “That girl has a prodigious talent for landing on her feet. But her maid is half-frantic, so I promised her I’d go out and have a look. Are we masters of the countryside?”

“As far as Beaucé and Javené. I don’t promise some Chouan won’t snipe at you from behind a hedge, mind. They’ve all gone to ground, and it’s impossible to root them out in this country.”

The spy blanched and cast an uneasy glance over the rampart at the patchwork of fields and hedgerows below.

“Perhaps I’ll have another look around town. Mlle. de Verneuil is not the sort of girl who enjoys long rambles through the fields; no doubt she would have made her way back here…”

Hulot snorted. “Citizen, you astonish me.”

“A silly notion, really, going to look for her. I’m sure she’s perfectly all right. And perhaps my attention has been misdirected. Why should I go haring off into the countryside after some girl, when our brave defenders are right here?”

“Why indeed,” Hulot said dryly.

Corentin’s horse was starting to fidget. He nudged her into a piaffe, slowly circling around Hulot in a display of horsemanship that was the equestrian equivalent of his ostentatious clothing: showy and completely devoid of any practical purpose.

“You’ve had a magnificent triumph, commandant. And your blood must be up after such a fight. Shall we go and celebrate?”

Too late, Hulot realized where this was heading. Worse, the soldiers around him were beginning to prick up their ears and take notice.

“Perhaps you have the leisure to prance around the town, citizen spy, but some of us are working. Go away.”

“Your good captains here look like they have things well in hand,” said Corentin, nodding at Lamotte and Villepreux, who’d been going through the casualty list with Hulot to decide on field promotions before the spy had interrupted them. “Surely they can spare you for a few minutes?”

“We could, sir, if you want to go,” said Villepreux, his face perfectly innocent. It might have been obtuseness, but Hulot was chalking it up to spite. Villepreux had three years seniority on him and he had never quite forgiven Hulot for being promoted over him.

“Such a great victory should be rewarded,” Corentin said coaxingly. “Don’t you want to claim your prize?”

“Some prize. A prize coward, more like. Fuck off!”

“I’ll take him if you don’t want him!” someone called from behind him. Hulot couldn’t identify the speaker from his voice, and when he turned to glare at him the cluster of soldiers standing behind him were all very busy inspecting their cartridge-boxes. Beside him Captain Lamotte sniggered, and then put on his most somber expression and tried to pretend he hadn’t when Hulot turned back round.

“Sorry, friends, but this dainty is just for the commandant.” Corentin reined in his horse again and studied Hulot’s face, as if it required any sort of concentration to see the storm brewing there. “Are you quite sure? I promise you, you won’t regret it. I’m very good.”

“A promise you’ll keep as well as your promise to Mlle. de Verneuil’s maid, no doubt. Thunder of God, I regret everything about that infernal directive! Be off with you!”

The spy tossed his head, making his corkscrew ringlets bounce on his shoulders. 

“Well, suit yourself. I’ll stop by later, in case you change your mind,” he said, and kicked his horse into a canter.

“Don’t!” Hulot called after him, but he was already halfway down the street.  
  


* * *

  
Unfortunately, the promise to call upon Hulot later that day was one that Corentin chose to keep. Hulot would not have received him, but Beau-Pied answered the door and it did not occur to the young sergeant to refuse him entry.

Hulot had made Beau-Pied his orderly. When a man is the sole survivor of a massacre, it is prudent to keep a close eye on him. A soldier expected to lose comrades, but to see his entire company gunned down before him, that was a terrible blow, of a sort many did not survive. Grief played tricks on the mind, even a mind as sunny and insouciant as Beau-Pied’s. New duties would keep his hands busy and occupy his thoughts, and the responsibility of looking after his commander would give him something to live for until time could dull the edges of his loss.

Beau-Pied was not, perhaps, a natural choice for the role. As a sergeant in First Company he had not been a particularly tidy soldier, and Hulot was not entirely convinced he knew how to clean a uniform. But what he lacked in skill he made up for in enthusiasm, and when Hulot had passed him in the courtyard earlier he certainly seemed to be enjoying himself walloping the hell out of Hulot’s dress uniform with the clothes strap. If he could take out his feelings on inanimate objects rather than charging into the enemies’ guns, Hulot would count the operation a success even if his kit was less well cared for than it had been hitherto.

They were, however, going to have to have a chat about Beau-Pied’s responsibility to screen his visitors. Hulot might also take the opportunity to explain that a servant was meant to be a _silent_ presence.

But at the moment he had a more immediate problem. While Beau-Pied returned to rubbing bran and Spanish whitener into his uniform trousers, Hulot sighed and rose from his desk to deal with Corentin.

“You again. What do you want?”

“Only a word with you, my dear commandant.” He glanced at Beau-Pied. “In private?”

Something had shifted since this morning. There was something ingratiating, almost subservient, in Corentin’s manner that was reminiscent of the way he conducted himself around Mlle. de Verneuil. Hulot found he liked the spy better when he was being supercilious, enigmatic, and amused at his expense. That attitude, at least, he trusted to be sincere. This air of deference could only be a stratagem, and he would rather have honest disdain than a false submission.

“Anything you need to say to me, you can say in front of my orderly.”

Corentin’s eyes flicked unhappily to Beau-Pied, but perhaps realizing that Hulot was in no mood to indulge him, he acquiesced.

“As you wish. I think,” he said humbly, “that you may have slightly misunderstood the situation. I’m at your orders, commandant.”

“Then why is it that I seem to find it so impossible to get rid of you?”

“You can have me however you like. My hand, my arse.” His eyes flicked again to Beau-Pied, and his cheeks reddened. So he was capable of shame, then. “My mouth, if that would please you.”

Beau-Pied gave a low whistle. It was difficult even to find a prostitute willing to suffer that degradation, and yet here was Fouché’s agent, offering it freely. Hulot stared at him, appalled and almost insulted. That Corentin could imagine he wanted _that!_ What sort of aristocratic debauchery were they getting up to in Paris these days?

“That’s one way to shut him up,” Beau-Pied said cheerfully.

“You’ve seen the directive; I’m at your disposal,” the spy went on, resolutely ignoring this interjection. “It’s my duty to please you. So just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”

“You could please me by fucking off.”

“Or perhaps you had more rarified pleasures in mind? You could take that strap to me, if you’d like,” Corentin went on, nodding at the clothes strap, which Beau-Pied had brought in and laid on the table where he was working.

Hulot’s breath caught at that, for it was the first suggestion the spy had made that was at all appealing, and it was, enormously so. The thought of exercising all his frustrations on this infernal incroyable as Beau-Pied had upon his best coat, of seeing the well-turned thighs that Corentin flaunted all over town in those conspicuously tight breeches writhe beneath the strap–! And didn’t Corentin deserve it? Couldn’t all the turmoil and misery and confusion of the past week – Mlle. de Verneuil’s reprehensible mission, the cruel deaths of Hulot’s men at La Vivetière, and now this damnable missive from the Ministry of War – couldn’t all of that be traced back to this wretched spy? Why _shouldn’t_ Hulot punish him for the trouble he’d brought on them?

Corentin saw the spark of interest in his eyes and seized upon it.

“You could bend me over your desk and whip me raw, if you want. You could fuck me like that, with my backside still red and smarting from your chastenment, so that I felt every thrust like another stroke of the lash. Come, commandant, we both know you’ve been itching to put me in my place since the day you met me. Seize your chance! You have charge of the department; it’s your right to mete out justice as you see fit–”

Hulot realized he needed to interrupt the excessively vivid picture Corentin was painting before it inspired him to do something he would later regret. He stepped forward and took the spy firmly by the arm.

“I might well do the first one, if you don’t clear off. Is all that cologne gumming up your ears? What part of ‘Go away and stop bothering me with this nonsense’ don’t you understand?”

“You wouldn’t have to do anything at all if you don’t want to!” Corentin went on, a little desperately, as Hulot marched him to the door, “You could just lie on the bed, and I’d do the hard part!”

“I think you’ll find it’s the commandant who has the hard part,” Beau-Pied chipped in. Hulot gave him a quelling look, and threw the spy out of the room.

“I don’t have time to lie in bed in the middle of the day, and neither should you. Out!”

Corentin stood in the hallway rubbing his arm, where Hulot’s fingers had no doubt left bruises, and looking a little forlorn. Hulot took great pleasure in slamming the door in his face.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take him up on that offer?” Beau-Pied asked, when Hulot had returned to his desk. Hulot gave him a grimace that would have induced a judicious silence even in Captain Villepreux, but it seemed the irrepressible sergeant had a death wish after all.

“He wouldn’t be bad looking if you could get him out of those ridiculous clothes, and we know he’s a good rider,” Beau-Pied continued, winking at him. “And those breeches don’t leave much to the imagination.”

“I have seen far too much of Citizen Corentin with his clothes still on. The last place I want to find him is in my bed,” Hulot snapped. “And there is nothing more to say about it.”  
  


* * *

  
Corentin had the sense to make himself scarce for the rest of the day, so Hulot was left to negotiate with Mlle. de Verneuil over the fate of their Chouan prisoner without his interference. For the first time Fouché’s agents were of some use to him, for he had no great appetite for firing squads and it suited him to have an excuse to call this one off. Whether anything would come of the girl’s mad scheme remained to be seen – for his part, Hulot has his doubts – but it was true that the podgy Comte de Bauvan was not much of a prize and it would cost little to release him.

Hulot soon found himself regretting the decision, for it somehow led to a dinner even more excruciating than the one he’d suffered through the night before. Mlle. de Verneuil and Bauvan spent the whole meal exchanging the sort of oblique, carefully constructed barbs that pass for conversation in aristocratic circles, and it was with profound relief that Hulot escaped their company afterwards to tell the sentries that the Chouan was being released and they were to let him pass without hindrance. He did a round of the fortifications to make sure everything was in order, and when he came back to Saint Léonard’s Gate they told him that Mlle. de Verneuil was escorting the count out of the town. Hulot decided to wait for her return.

Just as the girl was coming up the path, Corentin appeared, unsummoned, at his elbow.

“Did you have a nice dinner?” he asked.

Hulot did not deign to reply. He had not, and he was quite sure Corentin knew he had not, and would not have asked the question otherwise. They endured the rest of the wait in thorny silence.

“Two more days!” Mlle. de Verneuil called to Hulot when she saw him standing by the gate. She was about to say something else, but then she noticed Corentin beside him and cut herself short. She waited until she came up to the gate, and then walked over and murmured in his ear, “–and he shall fall beneath your guns.”

Why Corentin should not bear witness to this promise Hulot could not guess, except perhaps that it irritated him to be excluded. If that was Mlle. de Verneuil’s motive, he was all for it. Pettiness was certainly preferable to treachery, which was the only other reason he could see for keeping her plans from her colleague. In any case, Hulot would not betray her. He was not a man to break a confidence, even an inexplicable one, and he was not altogether sure in his own mind that he wanted her project to succeed.

“I am going to Saint James,” she said, “to a ball given by the Chouans, and–“

“But that is five leagues from here,” Corentin interrupted. “Do you want me to accompany you?”

Mlle. de Verneuil shot him a look of withering contempt. “You are very taken up with something that I never think about at all – yourself.”

Hulot grinned; he couldn’t help himself, and he didn’t bother to try. As for Corentin, he suffered the reproof with his customary meekness and made no answer. Mlle. de Verneuil had rounded the corner of the church before Hulot realized that they had forgotten to ask her what she _did_ intend to do for an escort. She had not requested one of him, nor would he have been inclined to grant it, considering what had become of the last one. Presumably she meant to go by herself.

“To venture into that nest of vipers alone! That girl is as brave as any of my soldiers,” he said. He could fault her morals and good sense, but not her audacity.

Corentin gave him a sidelong glance, and then seemed to be struck by something, for he cocked his head to one side and studied Hulot thoughtfully.

“Is that the trouble, then? Is it that you’d rather have Mlle. de Verneuil? I quite understand, but I’m afraid you can’t afford her on a commandant’s wages.”

Hulot had known that from the moment he saw her in the coach. It was one of the things that had vexed him so much about the escort mission. Not that he and his men had no chance with her, for he had no time to pay court to women and he would rather his officers didn’t go chasing after petticoats either, but that they were expected to play nursemaid to these fine folk and risk their necks for them when a girl like Mlle. de Verneuil wouldn’t spare them a passing glance. For the traitor Montauran the ministers could send this beauty from Paris, while the loyal soldiers of Hulot’s demi-brigade were lucky to get their bread ration.

Still, he was not going to stand idly by and hear her abused by her own colleague.

“You speak of her as if she’s no better than a common whore,” he growled.

Corentin smiled. “Oh, she’s a great deal better than a common whore. That’s why her fee is three hundred thousand francs, and why you are falling over yourself to defend the honor of a girl you have known five days, one of which she spent getting sixty-five of your men killed through sheer carelessness.”

“Small wonder she doesn’t want you to escort her to the ball, if this is how you defend her. Some champion!”

“You strike me as a man who likes to call things by their names, Commandant Hulot. Let us not pretend this mission is something other than what it is. But I have never understood why gallantry should enhance a man’s reputation and destroy a woman’s. That girl is the Bonaparte of coquetry – why should we not praise her conquests as we do his? If I had half her skill our conversation this afternoon might have been more successful.”

“It was your skill as a spy that was lacking there, my little mouchecadin. I cannot imagine what use you are to Fouché, if you are so bad at listening.”

“Oh, I took the point,” Corentin said, reflexively rubbing his upper arm where Hulot had grabbed him. “And no doubt it’s been very amusing to make me beg for your cock in front of all your men, but you’ve had your fun now. Don’t you think it’s about time we got on with it?”

“Make you–! It was _my_ idea for you to proposition me on the Promenade, was it?”

“Citizen commandant, you have only to direct me. If you’re going to make me guess what you want, you can hardly blame me if I don’t get it right first time.”

“Oh, it’s very simple what I want. I want a clean fight and no part of these intrigues, whether that’s with you or Mlle. de Verneuil or anyone else,” Hulot said bitterly, and strode off before the spy could devise some new plan to talk his way into his bed.  
  


* * *

  
Corentin did not come to see him the next morning, and Hulot dared to hope that perhaps the matter had been laid to rest. Mlle. de Verneuil had assured him the Gars would fall beneath his guns in two days. That was tomorrow. How she was to accomplish this he could not begin to guess, but if she could make good on her promise Fouché’s plan would be achieved, and the directive from the Ministry of War would cease to have effect. Or, if the Comte de Bauvan’s safe conduct proved as worthless as his confederate’s and she did not return from the ball, the directive would again become an irrelevance, for Hulot could not see how Corentin could possibly complete the mission on his own. He would have to go back to Paris to report his failure, and Hulot would be free of him.

If he could but wait Corentin out for two more days, the situation might resolve itself. Ignoring problems until they go away is rarely a successful strategy in military affairs, but it occasionally works in civilian life.

Hulot had asked the guards at the gates to alert him when Mlle. de Verneuil returned to the town, and the message came a little after dusk. When Hulot arrived at her house to learn the results of her wild enterprise, Corentin was waiting for him on the doorstep. Hulot gave a violent start at the sight of him, for it was downright uncanny how the spy always seemed to know his movements without being told. Perhaps he had been too hasty yesterday when he’d said Corentin lacked the skills of his trade. He had no choice but to go in with him.

It was clear that Mlle. de Verneuil’s bold venture had been a success, for she received them gayly.

“The fox is coming back within range of your guns, and you will soon win a glorious victory,” she announced, her eyes bright with triumph.

Corentin gave her a sidelong glance and asked casually, as if the question were of little interest to him, “What happened at the ball?”

His feigned indifference couldn’t even fool Hulot. To Mlle. de Verneuil, who knew him better, it must have been utterly transparent. She had a gloating, ironic air when she answered,

“The Gars is more in love with me than ever. I made him come with me as far as the gates of Fougères.”

“Apparently that is where your power ends,” said Corentin. “Your ci-devant’s fears are still greater than the love you inspire in him.”

“I am further along in my mission than you are in yours, and yours only took you to the next house. You haven’t slept together yet, have you?”

They both stared at her, dumbfounded, and she laughed at them.

“You’ve been away almost twenty-four hours; how could you possibly–“ Hulot began, but she cut him off with another laugh.

“Oh, colonel! Women have a way of knowing these things.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Corentin said. “But if you have such a mastery over matters of the heart, why did you not bring the Gars here, to your house, so that we could arrest him?”

“I’ll give him up to you at the time of my choosing,” she told him coldly.

“And when will that be?” Hulot asked.

She shrugged carelessly. “I do not know.”

There was nothing that could be said to that. Exasperated, they took their leave.

“It seems to me, citizen spy, that from time to time you allow that girl to rout you. I don’t believe she intends to give him up at all,” Hulot said to Corentin when they were some way down the street.

“Intends to? Perhaps not. But I can light my lamp as well by night as by day. Mlle. de Verneuil may have pronounced her ci-devant’s death sentence with great fanfare for our amusement, but I saw misgivings in her eyes. And she was very keen to deflect the conversation from her tryst onto ours, did you notice? Something is worrying her. I think the lovers have already arranged their next meeting; perhaps they have even decided the time and place. Tomorrow I should have a nice bit of skirmishing for you, commandant, and an interview with our friend the Gars.”

“But how, if she will not betray him?”

“If she goes to him, it is as good as if she brings him to us. We need only follow her and he will be ours.” Corentin smiled. Night was descending, but an open window cast a narrow beam of light into the darkened street. In the stark fall of light and shadow, his sharp face took on the contours of a skull.

“To make dexterous use of the passions of men and women,” the spy continued, “to pull them like wires for the benefit of the state, to put in place all the cogs in this great machine we call a government, to amuse ourselves by setting within it mankind’s most stubborn sentiments like baits in a trap – is all this not the work of a creator? Is it not a position like God's, at the center of the universe?”

Hulot recoiled in disgust. “You will permit me to prefer my trade to yours. Do as you please with your grand machinery; I will take the field with stout fellows who will not skulk, and openly confront the enemy you wish to take from behind.”

“Speaking of which,” said Corentin.

“If you think I am going to touch you after that pretty little speech–!”

“It is Mlle. de Verneuil’s pretty little speech that should concern you. Commandant, we need at least to have a conversation about this – a real conversation – and it would be best not to do it in the street. Shall we go to your lodgings?”

“I still have duties,” Hulot snapped.

“Later, then. Shall we say nine o’clock? Come – it was for you to set a date and time for our meeting; you would not; you must at least permit me to do so. We need to talk. If that is all you wish to do, I am hardly in a position to force myself upon you.”

Hulot had to admit, grudgingly, that he had a point. The thought of the slender little spy overpowering him and taking him against his will was laughable. Nothing could go any further than he wished it, except insofar as talking about this subject at all was already further than he wished the liaison to go.

“Very well,” he conceded with bad grace. “Nine o’clock.”  
  


* * *

  
Although Hulot had been dreading such a meeting for days, now that it was scheduled he found himself almost impatient for it to commence, with the same mix of trepidation and eagerness he would have felt on the eve of battle. It was not in his nature to duck out of a confrontation, and it was only because he felt his position so impossible, pinned between the ministerial directive and his revulsion for Fouché’s agent, that he had tried so hard to avoid this one. There was a strange reassurance in knowing it was now inevitable. He dismissed Beau-Pied for the night and tried to sit at his desk to finish some paperwork, but he kept pulling out his watch or getting up to pace the room.

Corentin knocked on the door just as the clock struck nine. Hulot had to give him credit for punctuality, or perhaps the spy was merely as eager to get things over with as Hulot was himself.

There was an odd tension in him when he came into the room, a marked contrast to his usual affected incroyable languor.

“You’ve put this off long enough,” he told Hulot. “If Mlle. de Verneuil has noticed, it’s become a problem.”

“I don’t see how.”

“What was it you were saying before about stout fellows who don’t shirk their duty?” Corentin asked ironically.

“This is completely different. It is not a question of courage but of scruples.”

“Scruples! It is nothing of the sort. There is no matter of conscience at stake; rather, you fear to taint your honor by too close an association with a spy.”

“With _you_ , at any rate.”

“You soldiers think that there is only one way of making war, but the fates of nations are decided as much in drawing rooms as on the battlefield, and the outcomes of battles depend as much on these social niceties as they do upon munition supplies. You have had a sharp lesson in that this past week, have you not? Had you been less solicitous of your precious honor with regard to Mlle. de Verneuil’s orders, you and not your adjutant would have had command at La Vivetière, and your friends might still be alive.”

Hulot clenched his fists. “How dare you. You would throw their deaths back at me to win an argument–“

“Oh, don’t pretend to be in mourning,” Corentin said dismissively. “You replaced them quickly enough. I’ve seen you with that pretty sub-lieutenant of yours.”

Hulot’s hand flew up to strike him, and it was only by a supreme effort of will that he restrained himself from breaking the spy’s smug little face.

“Get out.”

Corentin smiled sardonically. “Go on. What are you waiting for? This is _your_ way of winning an argument, is it not?”

Hulot pointed to the door. _“Out!”_

“Are you worried that I’ll make a bad report of you to Fouché? He won’t care what you do to me, not as long as I’m fit to work. You can be as rough as you like.”

Several things clicked into place in Hulot’s mind at once: Corentin’s odd demeanor, his extraordinary rudeness, the highly personal nature of his remarks. This was not a man who had spoken rashly in the heat of an argument. He had come in planning to say what he did, and from the sound of things, he’d fully expected to have his nose broken for it.

“This has all been a provocation, hasn’t it,” Hulot said slowly. “You were hoping, what, that I’d just slam you up against the wall and ravish you?”

The spy shrugged. “Nothing else was working. I thought at first I might be able to talk you round, but I should have known better. After La Vivetière there was no hope of that. You blame us for the loss of your men, and you’re not the sort to hold a grudge against a woman, so the full weight of your anger falls on me. Very well. If there’s no other way, let’s do it like this.”

“Are you truly this desperate for my cock? You’re pathetic.”

Corentin stared at him. “You cannot possibly think I _want_ this. Why the devil would I want to sleep with a man who has made it abundantly clear at every opportunity just how much he despises me?”

“I can’t imagine, but you’ve been pestering me about it relentlessly for three days! Is it Fouché, then? Are you really so afraid of him that you’d rather have a beating from me than flout his orders?”

“Pity now, commandant? I think I preferred your contempt. No, it’s you, not Fouché. In light of your tender feelings for me I figured things were likely to end this way anyway, so I thought I might as well get it over with.”

“You’ve misjudged me. I wasn’t planning to maltreat you. I was planning not to do it.”

“Not do it?” The blank bewilderment on the spy’s face would have been comic under any other circumstances. “You can’t not do it. It’s a directive from the Ministry of War. It isn’t _optional_.”

“The Ministry of War issues a great many directives, citizen.”

“Which you have to obey, because they’re _orders_. You’re a military man; surely you’re familiar with the concept.”

Hulot laughed. “You may know all about harnessing people’s passions to the machinery of the state and so on, but I see the army still has something to teach you about creative miscommunication.”

“Creative– It’s a straightforward order. I’m afraid I don’t see much scope for creativity.”

“Paris is seventy-five leagues away, with a royalist army in between. Half of what they tell me to do contradicts the other half. The ministers tell me the general shape of what they want – this vile scheme of yours to ensnare the Gars, for instance – but out here, the precise implementation of their orders is left to the officer’s discretion. And I am making a discretionary judgment that this plan is shit. I don’t want to fuck you. You, it appears, do not want to fuck me. We’re not doing it.”

Corentin shook his head. “That won’t work. There’s nothing to interpret; the entire town knows exactly what we’re meant to be doing. It’s the talk of your whole demi-brigade.”

“Thanks to you!”

“I wouldn’t have needed to keep bringing it up if you hadn’t been so obstinate! I’m no happier about this than you are, commandant, but we really don’t have a choice.”

“I wasn’t suggesting we march up to the mairie and tear up that infernal directive in front of the mayor. We were ordered to liaise; well, here we are, liaising. What happens in this room is between us alone. We’ll give out that we did it. Who’s to know?”

“Mlle. de Verneuil! Your men!”

The candle on his desk gave only a little light, leaving most of the room in shadow. Hulot shaded his eyes with his hand and peered theatrically into the darkened corners.

“Where are they? I don’t see them.”

“And tomorrow, when your soldiers ask you how it went, as we both know they will? With respect, commandant, you don’t strike me as a very good liar.”

“So they guess. What does it matter?”

“Do you really think Fouché has only two agents in Fougères? What your men know, Paris will know within a week.”

“You _are_ afraid of him.”

“Afraid? No, it isn’t that, not exactly.” Corentin looked down for a moment, then seemed to come to some sort of resolution. “Do you trust me, commandant?”

“Ha!”

“Are we working well together, would you say?”

“We’re not working together at all.”

“Quite. Well, Mlle. de Verneuil will give us the marquis, but not, as I think you have gathered, altogether willingly. She is a clever girl and tenacious when she has a mind to be. If we cannot work in concert, if she perceives a division between us, she will play us one against the other and her ci-devant will slip through our fingers while we bicker.

“And then what? This insurrection will continue. You will lose more of your men, the people here will continue to live in terror of murder and brigandry. Perhaps the First Consul will be forced to divert more soldiers from fighting on the frontiers to contain the rebellion, or to negotiate with our enemies with one of his own provinces in open revolt at his back.

“I don’t know if the union of our bodies can bring about a corresponding union of spirit. It is not an administrative measure that meets with universal success. But if we don’t try it, we will never know. And then, if the Gars should escape us, and everything in that long chain of disasters should come to pass, and all because I would not carry out a simple order…” Corentin bowed his head. “I cannot go back to Paris and tell him that. I cannot.”

Hulot gave him a narrow look. “This is another stratagem, isn’t it? You couldn’t provoke me into fucking you so you’ve fallen back on this appeal to my patriotism.”

“Of course it is. But it’s also the truth. If Mlle. de Verneuil’s cooperation is in doubt then I must have yours, and I must do whatever I can to secure it, even if that means begging for your help.”

“You might have said all this two days ago,” Hulot pointed out. “Or two hours ago.”

A trace of the old irony crept back into Corentin’s face. “I thought you were more likely to act out of spite.”

“You take a pretty dim view of humanity, don’t you, citizen spy?”

“Am I wrong?”

“I damned well hope so. You’re wrong about me. If you truly think this so important, then I’ll do it.”

Hulot had not expected Corentin to fall on his knees in gratitude, but a modest ‘thank you’ would not have been inappropriate. Instead, the spy looked at him with suspicion.

“Just like that? After you gave me the runaround for days?”

“Just like that. Although there is one condition.”

Corentin smiled bitterly. “Of course.”

“You want us to work in concert. That’s fair enough. But to have any chance of success, we must be frank with each other. I want no more dissembling, no more provocations, no more attempts to manipulate me. Ask for what you need. Don’t try to maneuver me into position.”

“All right. You have my word of honor.”

For whatever a spy’s word of honor was worth. Time would tell, Hulot supposed. But there was no surer guarantee Corentin could give him now, so he would have to take it on trust.

“Very well. Now, how do you want to do this?”

“No point in half measures,” said Corentin with a faint smile, and he began unbuttoning his coat.

A liaison like this didn’t usually go so far, not on a first meeting, not in France, anyway – foreign officials took what they were given – but after everything that had been said between them it seemed unkind to reject the offer. Corentin would no doubt take it as another mark of Hulot’s contempt, rather than the customary reserve between near-strangers. And then there was the possibility that limiting this encounter would leave them open to a second.

Let them fully consummate this union, so that the spy could go back to Fouché and say that he’d done everything he could.

Setting aside the question of Corentin’s character, it wouldn’t be such a burden. Beau-Pied was right, he did look much better out of his clothes. A little skinny, perhaps, but not unpleasantly so; his tight breeches had not given a false impression. The spy had the body of a youth of twenty: firm, taut flesh lightly muscled from riding or other modest exercise, a gentleman’s body that had never known hard work. Hulot was accustomed to soldiers: weather-beaten, scarred by bullets and saber wounds, their shoulders built up from carrying their heavy packs on long marches. This was a different look, but not displeasing.

Hulot sat down on the edge of his bed to pull off his boots, and Corentin came and sat naked on his lap and began taking off the rest.

“Hang that up,” Hulot admonished, when the spy had stripped him of his coat.

Corentin laughed. “Commandant! Do I strike you as a man who is careless with clothing?”

But he obligingly got up to hang it in the wardrobe, scampering across the cold floorboards and then dashing back into the bed with an alacrity that Hulot found pleasing. Corentin was much more tolerable when he was not dressed like a reactionary and he was running about doing Hulot’s bidding. And, to do the muscadin justice, he _did_ smell nice. That was something one more or less gave up on in the army; the officers did their best to enforce hygiene standards, but there was a limit to what could be achieved in the dead of winter among a group of men who were sleeping in barns. A lover who smelled of lavender and citrus made for a pleasant change.

“Shall we see if I can draw your saber?” Corentin asked with a grin, sitting back down beside him and reaching into his lap.

This had been a point of mild concern for Hulot. Apart from the odd post-battle celebration he wasn’t generally overwhelmed with lust during these encounters – that wasn’t the point of them – but he typically went into them with a feeling of warmth and good fellowship that tonight was wholly absent. Usually all he had to do was relax and rub in the right places, and perhaps close his eyes and picture Gérard, and nature would take its course. He had never been more reluctant than he was tonight, and he wasn’t entirely sure his gun would fire.

Luckily, he soon discovered that he was in the hands of an expert. Corentin’s fingers were as soft and uncalloused as Mlle. de Verneuil’s, but it would be wrong to say the spy had no trade, for he clearly had great experience in this. Under his deft ministrations Hulot’s cock was soon up and under arms, and Hulot was about to suggest they advance to the next stage of proceedings when he realized they were critically undersupplied.

“Damnit, there’s only the candle in here. One of us will have to go down to the kitchen for some oil,” he said, cursing his lack of foresight. He didn’t want to put his uniform on again in his current state, but the commander of the demi-brigade couldn’t appear downstairs half-dressed with his bayonet fixed, and letting Corentin wander around headquarters in nothing but a shirt would invite all sorts of comments he would prefer to avoid.

“Oh, there’s no need for that,” Corentin said, looking pleased with himself. “I took care of it before I came.”

Hulot bristled. Had the smug little bastard really been so certain that he’d agree to this? No, that wasn’t it, he thought, remembering Corentin’s initial approach. The spy hadn’t expected this liaison to involve any sort of agreement at all. He’d prepared himself in advance because he’d assumed Hulot wouldn’t bother with it.

Thunder of God, the little wretch certainly had a low opinion of him, didn’t he? But then, Hulot had to concede, he hadn’t given Corentin much reason to form a better one. Perhaps this was his opportunity to change that.

“You are a clever one, aren’t you?” he said. “Now, I believe you mentioned something about lying back and letting you do all the work?”

If Corentin was on top he would have more control: it would mean he could set the pace, and he wouldn’t be pinned down. Hulot thought he might appreciate that, with a partner in whom he had so little trust.

Certainly he assented to the suggestion readily enough. Hulot lay back and helped him to clamber astride, sliding his cock along the warm crease between Corentin’s cheeks and then guiding it into his hole. Corentin was slick but almost painfully tight. Either his preparations had worn off over the course of their argument, or they hadn’t involved much stretching. He went a little paler and bit his lip when Hulot breached him, but he endured the strain with soldierly fortitude, making no complaint and continuing to ease himself down onto Hulot’s cock. Hulot was almost impressed.

He set his hands lightly on Corentin’s hips to guide him, and soon the spy was bouncing diligently up and down on his cock, riding him as skillfully as he had the little bay mare. Hulot was struck again by the contrast between them. Corentin’s skin was as pale as milk, dusted with a faint tracing of hair so fine it was scarcely visible in the candlelight. Hulot’s own arm, thick with muscle, bronzed from the sun, scored diagonally with the white line of an old saber cut, seemed like it belonged to an entirely different order of being. He wouldn’t have known he was fucking a man at all, except that the unmistakable evidence was flushing pink and beginning to stiffen against his belly.

Corentin noticed where his eyes had wandered.

“Don’t worry. I won’t get distracted. It’s just that your cock is so huge, it’s filling me so completely, I can’t help it–”

Hulot reached up, twined his fingers in one of the absurd corkscrews, and gave it a sharp tweak. Corentin’s eyes widened, and his cock twitched against Hulot’s stomach.

“None of that. Didn’t we agree to be frank with each other? If there’s one thing a career in the army affords a man it’s the opportunity to see a lot of cocks, and I know perfectly well that mine is of no more than average size.”

The spy looked sulky, although his rhythm never faltered. “Most people take it as a courtesy. Besides, you wouldn’t speak of it so slightingly if you were the one sitting on it.”

Hulot had to laugh, for it was impossible to be entirely unmoved by such flattery. “Even so.”

“Fine. Your _extremely average_ cock is hitting me in just the right place, and I can’t help getting hard. Happy?”

“Much better. Now, what did you mean by ‘distracted’?”

“You know. From this.” Corentin made a gesture that encompassed Hulot’s recumbent form and his own bouncing thighs. “From your pleasure.”

“This is for your pleasure too, you know,” Hulot said, easing their pace a little with a restraining hand so they might talk.

Corentin shook his head. “You saw the letter – the ministers placed me at your disposal, not the other way round.”

“You’re in my bed, not Berthier’s or Fouché’s,” said Hulot, with a forceful thrust upwards to drive home the point. Corentin made a small, startled sound and clutched at his knee. “I’m disposed to think my partners should enjoy themselves. And I can’t say much for your previous lovers if they thought otherwise.”

“Nor can I, really.” Corentin smiled wryly. “But they weren’t seeking my approval.”

“That doesn’t sound very republican.”

“It’s the Year VIII, commandant. _Égalité_ is out of fashion.”

“In Paris, perhaps. If you stick around here we’ll have to teach you a better way of doing things.”

But he hadn’t missed the way Corentin’s eyes had widened when he pulled his hair, or how his cock had given a little twitch of interest. It had been hardening up anyway, of course; that was what the whole discussion had been about, but still… He remembered how Corentin had brought up the strap completely unprompted, and the not entirely bitter tone in which he’d said ‘You can be as rough as you like.’ Experimentally he allowed the hand that was resting on Corentin’s hip to tighten a little, and was rewarded with a gasp of pleasure.

“Your brilliant plan to provoke me into fucking you – you didn’t settle on that just because you thought it more likely to work, did you?”

The spy smiled. “You’re not as thick as you look.”

Well, in that case. Corentin was a good rider, but Hulot could tell from the perspiration trickling down his side and his increasingly ragged breath that he was flagging a little. It was time for a change. Hulot caught him round the waist and inverted their positions, so the spy was flat on his back and he was above him. Corentin’s face went blank with surprise for a moment, but then he reached up and pulled his legs back to give Hulot better access. His eyes closed and he gave a soft cry as Hulot drove into him again.

“Not as thick as I look, eh?”

Corentin opened his eyes and grinned up at him. “Well. Not in some respects, anyway.“

With this new angle Hulot could thrust more vigorously, and it wasn’t long before he was on the verge of spending. Corentin had obviously taken his words on republican lovemaking to heart, because he’d grabbed hold of his own cock and he was frigging it enthusiastically. Hulot seized his wrist and pulled his hand away, pinning it beside the pillow.

“Not yet.”

“Some republican!” said Corentin, but he was smiling, and when Hulot released him he left his hand where he’d placed it.

“Oh, you’ll get to finish, never fear. But you’ll do it on my orders.”

Corentin used the hand that Hulot had pinned up by the pillow to give him a mocking salute.

“Yes, my commandant.”

When Hulot felt himself cresting, he took hold of Corentin’s cock and gave it half a dozen firm strokes.

“Now you can spend,” he told him, and they came together, the spy’s lithe body arching against his.

After he caught his breath, Hulot reached down and swept his shirt off the floor to wipe them both clean. Corentin lay limply and let him tend to him. The spy seemed half-stunned, either because this was the first decent sex he’d had in his life or because he’d shown up forty minutes ago expecting a beating and he was still coming to terms with what had happened instead; Hulot wasn’t sure which. Probably not because of his enormous cock, although no doubt Corentin would be happy to let him think so.

He nudged the spy over a little so he had enough room to slide between him and the wall and lay down himself, throwing an arm over Corentin and the coverlet over them both. At this Corentin roused a little.

“I should go and keep watch over Marie,” he said without enthusiasm, wriggling out from under Hulot’s arm. “We’ll miss her rendezvous with Montauran if we don’t look sharp.”

 _Marie_. The spy occasionally addressed her by name, but in conversation with Hulot he had always referred to her as ‘Mlle. de Verneuil’. Some barrier had dropped, or perhaps he was just too exhausted to know what he was saying.

“Yesterday she went out through Saint Léonard’s Gate at midnight, and since then she has made a journey of ten leagues back and forth to Saint James and attended that infernal ball. There will be no rendezvous tonight; that girl is going nowhere except to her bed. Keep your watch tomorrow. Tonight you should get some sleep.”

The spy blinked at him, his green eyes glazed with confusion. “What, here?”

Hulot snorted. “Unless you _want_ to get dressed and make your way back to your lodgings in the freezing cold.”

By way of answer, Corentin burrowed back under his arm and closed his eyes.

“I ought to put curling papers in, at least,” he said drowsily, although he made no move to do so.

“Don’t. It looks ridiculous. Tomorrow I’ll plait it for you, if you like; much more soldierly.”

But what the spy made of this proposal they would not find out until morning, for he was already fast asleep.

Despite himself, Hulot could not help feeling a certain tenderness for the exasperating little muscadin. Part of it, of course, was that Corentin was much more agreeable when he was unconscious and he could be relied upon not to share any more of his appalling philosophy. But Hulot had to admit that some of it came down to the sex. It _had_ been good, and he could not bring himself to truly hate someone who had made themselves vulnerable in that way and then passed out so trustingly in his arms. Perhaps it wasn’t much of a rapport on which to pin the hopes of their campaign in Brittany, but it was more than what they’d had.

Damn the ministers for cunning foxes, he thought as he snuffed out the candle, but it seemed their plan had worked after all.


End file.
